


The Good Neighbours

by TawnyOwl95



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale's Flaming Sword, BAMF Aziraphale (Good Omens), BAMF Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley is Good With Kids (Good Omens), Crowley is happy, Cuddling & Snuggling, Eldritch Angels, Established Relationship, Fluff, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Kissing, M/M, Post-Canon, Retirement, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), They are both so in love, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, eldritch smut, his angel loves him and he is so content it's obscene, honestly, kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:54:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23333443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TawnyOwl95/pseuds/TawnyOwl95
Summary: Retirement was going surprisingly well until a drunken night of karaoke in the village pub.Now Aziraphale has been shanghaied into the church choir, and Crowley has set himself up as a mentor for troubles teens.They are (horrors) actually part of a human community, which poses a number of difficulties for two being who aren’t actually human.  Not to mention that before The Big One fully gets underway both Heaven and Hell have decided they want to dispose of their two most troublesome field agents.A small village in the South Downs is about to come under fire. Literally.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 37
Kudos: 134





	1. Ostara (21 March)

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to write something silly and happy and life affirming right now. 
> 
> Archive warnings for complete butchering of a Cole Porter song. 
> 
> If you want to know how it should sound [have a look here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5SRVXhyunM)

They had accepted that it would happen eventually but, as with the whole antichrist debacle, they had thought there'd be more time.

Aziraphale was lost in an illuminated book of hours and it took him a moment to recognise the door bell ringing for what it was.

"We're closed," Aziraphale sing songed out of habit. Then he remembered that although the space around him looked like, and in some respects was still, his Soho book shop right down to the London commuters passing the window, it was, in actual fact, a space bending addition that had been painstakingly miracled on to the rear of a cottage in Sussex. 

The bell rang again. 

"Crowley?!" 

No answer. Bother. He was probably out in the wilderness of the back garden working on, what Aziraphale feared, would turn into another hobby project. His head still hadn’t recovered from the home brew.

The bell rang with quite aggressive insubordination. 

"Well, if you must insist." Aziraphale carefully replaced the book and pulled off gloves and spectacles. He bustled through the labyrinth of the cottage's mismatched furniture and jerked open the door. The old hinges groaned in protest. 

"May I help you?" Aziraphale asked the destroyer of peace on his doorstep with all the unfurling fury of an ancient being currently clinging to the edges of sanity. 

The destroyer of peace blinked, but admirably held her ground. She was white-haired and petite. Despite this her general demeanour and brightly coloured plastic jewellery screamed quirky matron of the parish, as did the way she was peering owlishly at Aziraphale through her horn-rimmed glasses.

Aziraphale noted the expressions on her face as her eyes told her the door had been opened by a cuddly, middle-aged man in a bow tie while her primal instinct for self-preservation recognised the dissonance between appearances and reality and urged her to flee. Now!

It was always telling which way a human would go.

This time reason won out over reality. "Sorry to interrupt." She held out the wicker basket that had been hung on her arm. "It's just so nice to see the place lived in at last. The village has put you together a welcome hamper to help you settle in."

They'd been settled in for six months. Still, they'd known it would happen eventually, and Aziraphale had already noted the pink and white striped box in the basket with the logo of the village bakery on. If it didn't contain apple strudel now it certainly would by the time he opened it. 

"I'm Maggie Cook," the destroyer of peace said. 

Aziraphale told her his name, confident in the knowledge she'd have forgotten both it and him by the time she'd gone back through the garden gate. Maggie Cook smiled the smile of a lady currently thinking about whatever she liked best (grandchildren and conducting the church choir.)

Aziraphale took the basket and wished her good day. She'd tell the rest of the village that no one had been in, but she'd left the basket and a note so there was no need to bother them again. Ever. At all. Thank you very much.

Aziraphale watched her until she'd left the premises then set out to hike through the garden. 

"Crowley!" 

"Over here, angel." Crowley half hung out of the entrance to what looked like an iron age round house. He’d pushed back the leather door covering with one hand and the other gripped the wooden frame. 

Aziraphale’s rising anxiety softened at the edges. Casual Crowley was a surprising pleasant adjustment. He was still all in black and red, but his glasses were nowhere to be seen and his denims were lose enough that he didn't need to miracle his way into them. He was wearing a ridiculously baggy T-shirt tied in a knot at his waist and a grin that was quite undemonically gleeful. Aziraphale's heart melted just a little bit more every time he saw that grin. Despite the trials of Maggie Cook he was smiling himself by the time he'd fought his way through the brambles to Crowley’s side.

"Picnicing are we?" Crowley asked.

"A dreadful woman brought this to the front door." Aziraphale pouted.

"She brought you food and you're calling her dreadful? Will wonders never cease?" 

"Oh, you.”

Crowley held the leather back while Aziraphale stepped inside. The floor was packed earth and dust from the thatch roof spiralled lazily in what light there was. A hole had been dug in the centre of the floor and a dizzyingly complex contraption of metal pipes and bellows dominated the space.

“I still don’t feel comfortable with all that fire and all that flammable natural matter lying about.” Aziraphale shuddered. When Crowley had first started doodling and googling Aziraphale had made him swear to build his home forge as far away from the hidden bookshop extension as was physically possible. Crowley had not argued.

“Have you got it working yet?”

“Almost.” Crowley wiped his hands on the backs of his thighs.

Aziraphale miracled a picnic rug and sat down. It would be churlish of him to let the contents of the basket go to waste. On his way over he’d spotted a nice looking bottle of local wine and promising looking cheese truckle that warranted further exploration. Business first though.

“I’m afraid we’ve been rumbled, dear boy.”

“Rumbled? Where on Earth did you get that from?” Crowley folded himself efficiently on to the picnic rug. He smiled and helped himself to the french stick. The crust snapped as he twisted off a piece. “Going to happen eventually, wasn’t it? Not the same sort of place as London where you have such a high turnover of population, and the ones that do stick around would faint rather than look up from their phone screens and actually say hello.”

“What if they want us to mingle?” Aziraphale shuddered.

“You like mingling.” Crowley leaned forward as he cut open the cheese. His knotted T-shirt rode up to reveal a slither of his back and the dimples either side of his spine.

Aziraphale allowed himself to relax. The place smelled of metal ghosts and smoke, and it was filled with Crowley’s presence. Soft and velvet dark, and safe.

“Don’t like mingling.” Aziraphale muttered.

“What about all those lad’s in Soho during the 60s? Oh look. Fig chutney.” The jar lid popped as Crowley twisted it off.

“That was different. They needed help and I was fulfilling my angelic duties.”

“Leviticus ring any bells?”

“Regardless, one does not pass by on the other side.”

Crowley tilted his head. In times past it would have been exactly the right angle for him to peer disbelievingly at Aziraphale over his glasses. The glasses being absent, Aziraphale was able to experience the full force of both disbelief and affection. It did pleasantly queer things to his insides. A blush crept up the back of his neck, and he enjoyed not feeling like he had to hide it.

“We should go out for dinner.” Crowley, fiend that he was, pressed the advantage of having Aziraphale speechless.

“You mean to make a spectacle, don’t you?”

“Whatever you did to the purveyor of picnics it won’t last. Now that they’ve twigged something’s up they’ll just come back again, and you can’t keep messing with people’s minds like that, angel. Nosey neighbours, irritating as they are, are not in the same league as property developers. They don’t deserve that and I won’t allow it.” Crowley held out his carefully constructed tower of bread, cheese and chutney with two fingers.

Aziraphale sighed. “The steak in that pub is really not up to scratch.”

“Yours will be tonight.”

Aziraphale accepted Crowley’s edible offering. “Thank you dear.”

“One night of mingling and they’ll see how depressingly dull we are and that will be the end of it. We should take this picnic outside before the weather turns again.”

“I like it right here, if you don’t mind.” Inside with Crowley, where it was velvet dark and safe.

Conversation didn’t exactly stop in the pub when Aziraphale and Crowley entered, but there was a distinct alteration in the timbre of the conversation. People tried and failed not to look.

Aziraphale’s hands went automatically to his waistcoat, and then the ring on his little finger. Cool, black iron. A tiny snake wrapped round and round, with its head turned up towards Aziraphale’s nail. This wasn’t so bad. It was a cosy village pub with beams and knickknacks, and local produce on the menu. There was also a quiet table for two tucked away in a corner. Not too close to the main entrance, and definitely not too close to the toilets. Just the right amount of lighting. It was not reserved but had remained free all night. Aziraphale sat down. Crowley went to the bar.

Normal conversation in the pub resumed.

Crowley was back in his tight jeans and red accented boots tonight. The only concession to time moving on was Aziraphale’s ring, too big for his pinkie so he wore it on his ring finger instead. 

Aziraphale fidgeted with a beer mat while Crowley talked to the boy behind the bar. He was tousle haired and surly. His energy was a little bit too dark and oily at the edges. Aziraphale tried not to look. They’d agreed to keep a low profile.

Crowley came back to the table with a bottle of red and two empty glasses. He flopped down with a frown, limbs flung out any old how. Aziraphale laid his hand over his.

“He’s not happy is all.” Crowley said of the boy. “He’s pretending well enough but I can taste the weight of it. It goes right down to his bones.”

Aziraphale gripped Crowley’s hand and looked at the boy. It made his head hurt the way the energy around him warped, sucking in on itself. “Not a quick fix, I’m afraid. And, you asked me not to mess with people.”

“Not suggesting you do.” Crowley sat up straighter. “Not much you can do, I don’t think.”

Aziraphale glanced back to the bar. The boy looked straight back at him with eyes like chips of green glass. Fortunately it was a girl with a pony tail and too may piercings who brought their order over. The steak really was excellent. The wine was even better. Not exactly a vintage normally found in a village pub that only really saw business in tourist season, but messing with wine was not the same as messing with people. They ordered another bottle and were quite happily settling down to get sloshed when the front door opened and man wheeled in a trolley loaded with speakers.

Crowley’s spine lifted itself out of its sprawl. His head turned.

“Low profile, dear.” Aziraphale murmured

Crowley liked karaoke. On the surface it was a fun form of self-expression, except that the songs and how they were sung revealed more about a person than they were really aware. There was also very great potential for hungover regret and embarrassment the next day.

Plus it appealed to the demon’s more flamboyant side. The side that he wouldn’t admit to unless he’d slipped into that comfortable state of acceptance that came with alcohol and an acknowledging that Aziraphale would and did love him no matter how much of a tit he made of himself.

“Could just do one.” Crowley said as the equipment was set up. “Something dull and innocuous.”

“Oh, no. Not one of those awful eighties ballads,” Aziraphale said.

“Snob. Eighties ballads were made for karaoke.”

“I suppose they must have been made for something.”

The truth was that Aziraphale wanted to hear Crowley sing. His voice was about as far removed from celestial harmonies as it was possible to be, but there was a raw earthiness to it that clenched Aziraphale’s heart. The first time Aziraphale had heard it was when Crowley was weeding the flower beds at the back of the cottage. Aziraphale had put down both his book and his tea cup just before he’d started weeping with the beauty of Crowley just being free to be Crowley. He’d offered up his token resistance to the karaoke and was now content.

“I’ll pay the tab then, off you go.”

Aziraphale went to hover at the bar, watching the boy with the icky-aura serve and braced himself for Bryan Adams or Sting being performed in Crowley’s fire-licked baritone.

_“There is nothing you can do that can’t be done_

_Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung.”_

Other voices in the pub drifted in to silence. This was not an angel’s voice by any means, but something better because it had been self-forged. The audience knew that it needed to be heard. Everyone knew the song, but not like this. Not in a way that could crawl beneath your ribs and make a home there.

Aziraphale closed his eyes and shivered. By the chorus half the pub would be singing along.

“You alright there?”

Aziraphale’s eyes snapped open. At this close proximity he couldn’t avoid the looking at the boy. Sam, that was his name. His desperate sadness had eased to a melancholy and although he spoke to Aziraphale he watched Crowley.

Aziraphale turned his head too. 

_“No one you can save that can’t be saved.”_ Crowley grinned at him.

Out of habit, Aziraphale bit down on his own smile. It was always harder not to react like that when they were in public. He knew his eyes were betraying him anyway though. They’d always lit up when they’d seen Crowley, or heard Crowley, or when Crowley was mentioned.

All around them mouths were gaping and eyes were hypnotised. Hearts swelled. There would be arguments made up in the village tonight, and significant number of children conceived. As usual Crowley was going for maximum results with minimum efforts.

“I think I’ll need another glass of red,” Aziraphale said.

“Your husband, is he?” Sam murmured. The only indication that he’d heard Aziraphale at all.

“I’m afraid so.” The pride in Aziraphale’s voice would not be hidden. He’d barely been able to hide it in when his affection was supposed to be a secret.

Sam looked momentarily wistful. As he went to move away, Aziraphale touched his wrist. Just a touch to get his attention. Sam wouldn’t quite remember it amidst all the other interactions of the evening, but the melancholy momentarily burned away opening up more space for Crowley’s song to find its way in.

“I think I’ll need another bottle, actually,” Aziraphale said, then quickly let go before he over did it.

Sam blinked and wordlessly obeyed. Aziraphale settled back down in the corner to wait for Crowley’s inevitable _‘Now All Together!’_

It was like being serenaded by the whole bloody pub. All the patrons had their attention fixed on Crowley, but Crowley looked only at Aziraphale. And he’d thought demons couldn’t love! Apparently this one could and had found a way to have it magnified around a crowd. People who could barely tolerate each other were holding hands. A couple in the corner needed a bucket of water thrown on them.

Aziraphale’s soul vibrated with it. It filled him up and, oh dear Lord, he wanted to join in too.

_“But you can learn to be you in time._

_It’s easy.”_

Aziraphale was trying very hard not to smile with pleasure, while at the same time being more uncomfortable than he’d been since a confrontation with a bath of Holy Water. Crowley knew it and was enjoying every minute.

When the last refrains had faded, and the audience were left happy stunned, and wondering what in Heaven and/or Hell had just happened, Aziraphale made his way to the packing crate stage before Crowley could decide on his next song. “I do remember that song was released in 1967, you know,” Aziraphale tried to sound waspish. “What's got in to you?”

“Two bottles of red and a bastard of an angel.” Crowley grinned, tipsy on said wine but drunk on love.

“Not yet. Later maybe.” 

Crowley grinned. Good Lord, those dimples! Aziraphale adored him.

Crowley’s grin widened. “Get up here and have a go.”

“Oh, I don’t think...” He shouldn’t. Aziraphale had never really sung much since coming to Earth. He hummed a bit round the book shop, but it wasn’t the same as actually singing with someone, being part of something bigger.

Oh! Now, there was an idea.

Crowley’s teeth flashed. Behind his glasses those eyes would be sparkling.

“If you’re about to say I’m going too fast for you…”

The temptation was too much. Aziraphale pointedly held out his hand. “Help me up, foul fiend.”

It was one thing accepting a demonic challenge in theory, but looking out on the half-lit pub was quite something else. At least every one was already reeling in a supernatural state of bliss.

“Is this on?”Aziraphale tapped the microphone and flinched at the squeal of feedback. “Thank you for indulging my husband, if I could presume on your patience just a moment longer I’d like to teach him a lesson.”

No one would have dared object. Despite their endorphin addled brains the audience knew a rhetorical question when they heard one.

To Crowley Aziraphale murmured, “Remember you started this.”

The perky piano notes that danced out of the speakers were not on the karaoke equipment’s catalogue. Aziraphale relished the dawning horror on Crowley’s face as he recognised the song as being from a musical, and that it was, in fact, a duet.

 _“At words poetic, I’m so pathetic…”_ Aziraphale began.

Crowley pulled back his lips and sneered. Aziraphale turned his most adoring smile on him. _“But if this ditty is not so pretty_

_At least it'll tell you how great you are!”_

Someone in the audience, still high on the energy of the previous show, wahooed as Aziraphale turned back to them and began comparing Crowley to all the things most valued in the 1930s.

“ _You’re the Nile_

_You’re the Tower of Pisa_

_You’re the smile_

_On the Mona Lisa_.”

Behind his glasses Crowley’s eye rolling was audible. “Bastard!” he mouthed just as Aziraphale chucked him beneath the chin and finished, “ _But, baby, if I’m the bottom, you’re the top_.”

“Total bastard,” Crowley hissed. Then, ignoring the autocue, took Aziraphale’s hand and with a side long look at the audience began,

“ _You’re the top._

_You’re crepes in Paris,_

_You’re tartan,_

_And tweed from Harris._

_I’m a demonic mess,_

_And I just can’t stop,_

_But, baby, if I’m the bottom_

_You’re the top_.”

Crowley brushed his lips over Aziraphale’s knuckles and stepped back looking far too much pleased with himself. Aziraphale’s heart and nerves fluttered together. Oh, this was very much on.

“ _You’re the top,_

_With Nazis to foil,_

_You’re James Bond,_

_You’re Casino Royale_.”

“2006?”

“Yes, my dear. _As an angel,_

_I’m such a total flop,_

_But, baby, if I’m the bottom._

_You’re the top_.”

If anyone else in the pub had any idea what was actually going on it was lost in the complete wave of pure joy they were all riding. Aziraphale was giddy, and in love and he could tell people. He could tell them obnoxiously loudly while butchering a song by Cole Porter.

“ _You’re an angel,”_ Crowley sang

_You’re simply too, too, too divine._

_You’re Cleopatra”_

_“You’re stars,_ ” Aziraphale chimed in.

“ _You’re ad astra_!”

Crowley twirled Aziraphale under his arm and against his side.

“ _And you’re mine!_ ”

So much for keeping a low profile. Still, it was possibly the best night of Aziraphale’s retirement so far. Although, to be fair, he thought that every night.

It got better outside in the moonlight. Having Crowley push him against a wall was something that Aziraphale would never get tired off.

“Cole Porter, really?” Crowley growled as he nipped his way along Aziraphale’s jaw. “I have a reputation.”

“Oh, yes, such a big scary demon you are getting the whole room to sing about only needing love.” Aziraphale’s head knocked back against the wall. He may have keened, but really, he was a being of love and the amount of it currently filling him was barely containable. His skin felt to thin, his heart not big enough.

“Is it my fault they didn’t realise I was being ironic?” Crowley muttered against Aziraphale’s neck.

Aziraphale fisted his hands in Crowley’s hair to get his attention. “You need to take me home, please. Now.”

Before he caused a preternatural implosion that would leave the rubble of the pub behind them smoking. Crowley’s grin was sinful. “Anything, you like angel. Of course.”


	2. Beltane (May)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale and Crowley settle in to village life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for suicide references right at the end.
> 
> Also, experiments in writing weird eldritch angel smut. Thoughts appreciated.

“You know what they call you in the village, don’t you?” Crowley rested one arm on the Bentley’s steering wheel and smiled. He couldn’t stop smiling these days. Tried to turn it into a sneer as often as he could mind, for appearances sake.

It was a sunny day, barely a cloud to be seen and Aziraphale’s hair was lit up like the world’s fluffiest halo. It would feel like dandelion silk and cotton. It’d smell like vanilla and peaches, and Crowley could bury his nose in it, if he wanted, with no more than a token grumbling resistance.

Crowley looked away, fingers tapping on is leg. Demons shouldn’t be this happy. He didn’t know how to handle it.

Aziraphale adjusted his bow tie. “I’m sure I have no idea what they call _me_ in the village.”

“No?”

Aziraphale glanced sideways at Crowley, lips pursed in disapproval.

“Well,” Crowley sat back, “don’t miss me too much, Angel Eyes.”

Aziraphale’s angel eyes narrowed. Crowley didn’t bother to stop his grin, he didn’t have to now. He didn’t have to push down the desire to lean across the Bentley and suck that disapproving bottom lip gently into his mouth.

He didn’t have to so he didn’t. Just one more experiment on the list of things to be indulged in. 

Aziraphale returned the pressure with a sigh. Then he pulled away, fussing with his bow tie again. “Honestly, what will people think?”

“That we’re madly in love and very happy.” It sounded cynical, but, damn it, he was still smiling.

Aziraphale’s lips pursed again, this time in a failure to hold in his own smile.

“Nothing you didn’t declare to them blatantly through karaoke,” Crowley said reasonably. “If you hadn’t decided to _serenade_ me we wouldn’t be sitting here right now.”

“You started it, if you remember, and you’re incorrigible.”

“Knock ‘em dead, Angel Eyes.”

“Stay out of trouble, Snake Hips.” Aziraphale got out of the Bentley and shut the door,

“What?” Crowley leaned across the now empty passenger seat. “ _What?!_ ”

Aziraphale ducked his head so he could look back through the window. “You mean you didn’t know what they call _you_ in the village?”

“I do not! I mean…”

“I’ll see you later, darling.” Aziraphale waved before trotting off towards the church.

“Don’t _darling_ me!” Crowley flopped back in his seat. “Bah!”

Of course the villagers would come up with some sort of stupid nicknames for them. Humans were not equipped to see many things and that included an angel and a demon moving among them. Oh, they could see the corporations well enough, but their faces and names didn’t like to stick in mortal minds without effort. 

Still, Snake Hips! That was just bloody rude. Crowley left his Bentley parked on the double yellow lines (force of habit and the angel wasn’t here to bitch about it) and took his hips for a saunter down the High Street. 

Being a quiet village in rural Sussex this consisted of the corner shop which sold post cards and sticks of rock over anything useful like milk, a bakery that thought putting too many ‘e’s in ‘old’ made it seem more authentic, and a pharmacy given that most of the local population were retirees albeit not quite as old as Crowley was. 

Some of said retirees were shuffling about, and Crowley bared his teeth at them in a suitably demonic sneer and let his snake hips go more than was strictly necessary. He never underestimated the amount of lust still residing in little old ladies. They didn’t.

He stopped at the corner shop to buy a lolly (not strawberry, too much baggage there) and sucked and sauntered his way back to the church just to prove that he could.

While he couldn’t go into the church to see Aziraphale he could sit in the graveyard and listen. Graveyards were more satanically spooky than consecrated after all. The bench beneath the western part of the chancel was occupied by a quiet little man in an anorak. He was feeding the birds. “I hear my wife has shanghaied your husband,” Mr Cook said. “Sorry about that.”

“She couldn’t have made him do anything he didn’t secretly want to.” Crowley eyed the bench. He was sure Mr Cook was perfectly adequate as bench partners went, but he wasn’t Aziraphale. Plus he was sitting on the side that was normally Crowley’s. After a moments awkwardness Crowley perched on a box tomb. “How long will they be do you think?”

“Oh, as long as it takes. Maggie is…” Mr Cook lowered his voice, “an absolute terror.”

Mrs Cook’s voice could be heard calling the rest of the choir to order even through thirteenth century stone. Well, Crowley had nowhere else to be really. The bellows in the forge were still wheezing a bit too much. He needed to tinker a bit more. Funny thing the tinkering. Never thought he’d be one to go in for tinkering. It was satisfying though, that was the thing. Satan, he was satisfied and content, and it left him just a little bit restless.

That was why the taste of sin and fear on the air made his head snap round.

The ice lolly popped from Crowley’s mouth. Mr Cook shuffled down the bench so he could turn his head and look down the path to where Sam was being cornered by three other youths. Bulky, unpleasant looking youths with bomber jackets and hate aplenty.

“I wish they’d just leave him alone,” Mr Cook said.

“You could ask them nicely,” Crowley suggested.

Mr Cook wanted to. He wanted to be brave, but he was old and frail. Afraid of being laughed at, or having his new hip replacement knocked out of joint. _We could go together,_ Crowley could have said. Or just smoothed out the doubt in Mr Cook’s mind and given his courage a bit of a nudge. Where would the free will be in that though?

In fact where would the free will be in Crowley interfering at all? The three big lads with the crew cuts had free will too, didn’t they?

Still, Crowley knew what it felt like to be different and hated for it. He nodded to Mr Cook and went to investigate the intimidation by verbal menaces that was happening by the church Lych Gate.

They weren’t expecting to be interrupted and things quietened down as Crowley approached. There was even a half-hearted shuffling to clear the path so he could pass.

Crowley gave them all a cheery good morning, then rested a shoulder against the trunk of the yew tree growing near the gate so he could see everything that was going on, and went back to sucking his lolly.

The three crew cuts glared at him. Like wolves they were, all predatory snarl while they were together. Get one alone though and they’d be off home to mum.

“Too hot out there.” Crowley gave the lolly another slurp. “Burn up something terrible in the sun, I do. Don’t mind me, I could see you were all in the middle of something.”

Sam was white, his eyes wide. He recovered first. “Actually, I think they were done.”

He didn’t wait for a reply, but shoved his hands in his pockets and hurried off, head down and shoulders hunched protectively up round his ears.

“Have a nice day,” Crowley said in the way only a demon can, which implied burn in Hell quite heavily. He tossed the lolly at the feet of the biggest crew cut and went after Sam. No reason really, just restless.

“Wait up, kid.”

“I’m not a kid!” Sam spun round sharply. “And I did not ask for your help.”

“Didn’t have to. Looked like you needed it was all.”

“Don’t think you’ve changed things. They’ll just be more careful next time.”

“What have they got against you anyway?” Crowley asked out of politeness. There was something delicate about Sam, something watchful and hidden. It’d scare anyone with a hint of insecurity. It scared Crowley quite a bit. This boy felt things and the intensity of it all twisted him up in side.

How much of a miracle would it take to slip inside his brain and rebalance the chemicals there so that he could feel less and think more? So he could slip undetected amidst the people who had too much fear and time enough to take it out on someone who felt different? How far would that take messing with him? Too far, of course.

“Stop looking at me like that.” Sam took a step back.

“Like what?” Crowley’s hand lifted to his face. Yes, his glasses were still in place.

“Like I’m not really here,” Sam said.

Crowley blinked, readjusting his gaze from the plane where he could see the coloured patterns of Sam’s being and back to looking only at his body.

“Just, leave me alone.” Sam turned around and walked away.

Fine, no problem, kid. The weird ones were always best avoided anyway. Book Girl still sent them Christmas cards every year even through they’d never told her their addresses which was, quite frankly, unsettling.

Aziraphale sat on the picnic blanket and listened patiently, one hand lightly scratching Crowley’s scalp, until the demon ran out of words.

Aziraphale hummed in sympathy. “Darling, if this young man really is nothing to worry about, why did you spend the last half an hour telling me not to worry?”

Crowley lifted his head out of Aziraphale’s lap. “He’s a little bit other, but nothing too special. I was explaining to you why we shouldn’t worry.”

“I’m not. Forgive me, but I think you might be.”

Crowley gazed up at the endless expanse of blue-black sky. His long throat jumped as he swallowed.

“We really shouldn't interfere,” Aziraphale murmured, daring to let one hand pet Crowley’s hair again.

“Unless it inconveniences you? I know what you’ve done in _Ye Olde Bakery_.” Crowley’s voice held no malice. He pressed into Aziraphale’s touch like a cat.

“Well, those men were being bullies. The poor girl has worked so hard and just because she was struggling they thought they could squeeze a local branch of a super market chain into her shop which, let me tell you, would put the corner shop right out of business too…”

“And her apple strudel is, wait what was it? Quite simply the best since Vienna?”

“Oh, yes alright. But you know once we start interfering it won't stop.” Aziraphale glanced at Crowley’s profile then back up at the stars.

“Started when we moved here, didn't it? An adjustment of the weather for picnics, or because the plants needed it. A redirection of a footpath because ramblers kept jumping the fence. You cured that woman's heart condition last Christmas.”

“It was Christmas! And they weren't all my miracles!” 

“I know. Just we’re interfering anyway, that's all I'm saying.” Crowley turned to face him “Didn't come up here to fight.” 

“No?” Aziraphale turned his head too.

“No.” Crowley grinned, teeth flashing momentarily white in the blackness. His palm was cool against Aziraphale’s cheek.

It was all just nerve endings, Aziraphale knew this. Nerves sending signals to the brain. But he also knew how Crowley was wired and never ceased to wonder at how a light touch to his neck could set off a chain reaction beneath his skin.

Their foreheads touched as they leaned in to each other and their breath mingled in the cool air between them. 

Kissing was nice. More than nice. The glide of skin against skin, and the heat of it as their tongues slid against each other. Aziraphale fisted Crowley’s collar as they tumbled back onto the picnic rug, working themselves closer together, but not close enough. It was a good start though: they needed to be lying down for what came next.

“Hold on to me, angel.”

Aziraphale hooked an ankle around Crowley's calf and gripped his shoulders, even though he knew that wasn’t quite what Crowley meant. 

For a moment Crowley was crowned with stars. Black feathers unfurled against pinpricks of light.

Aziraphale held on. They hadn’t summoned their wings but rather gone where there wings were.

There was no light but starlight and it illuminated everything. After so long in a human corporation Aziraphale took a moment for his mind to adjust to the streaming images around him, each one a frozen moment and infinite. Crowley was everywhere. Too big and borderless, but still with a hint of hiss and scales. Simultaneously a dark winged man, a red-bellied snake, a swirl of ochre space dust that wouldn’t allow the absence of legs to stop itself swaggering.

Aziraphale stretched out to Crowley, trailing awareness through the smoke of him until he shivered.

It was all about nerve endings and the gaps between electrons. Like this they could slide within each other, fill each other up. Two galaxies merging as one. 

Crowley was velvet, dark and safe. Playful and kind. Dramatic and curious and he loved Aziraphale so much. Aziraphale quaked with it.

 _Still with me angel?_

Aziraphale heard it with his human ears, raw edged and wanton, but it fell straight into the core of him too. Crowley’s voice was old, and beautiful and terrifying. It was a nail scratch against the periphery of him. Pleasure and the good kind of sharp fanged bite. 

_Not so bad yourself_. An eldritch voice could smirk. _All those eyes, all that fire. So bloody warm. Could bask in you forever._

Aziraphale could let him.

The distant muscles of Aziraphale’s body were arching, Crowley's fingers tethering his hips. Crowley's phantom coils tethered him here where there is no up or down just them and starlight. 

_Fuck me_. Aziraphale wasn’t using words. And it wasn’t exactly what he meant, but it was the best translation when all his thoughts were slipping into harmonies. _Make me sing, then._

_Ask nicely._

Ridiculous posturing! Crowley was so open to him, so ready and it was the easiest thing in the universe to glide together like air. Closer and closer until there wasn’t really anything left called Aziraphale, or Crowley. They were both this new thing they could become, teetering on the edge of nothing and everything. Surfing the centre of bliss and pain and being.

_Hold on._

_Love you_. 

They could say it here. Together. Where it meant something. Easier when they didn't need words, just knew it, felt it magnified as it was reflected back through them. 

Too much and not enough.

_Never enough._

They were burning with it, weightless as they tipped over the edge into free fall. The sky lit up. Aziraphale slammed back into flesh and bone. He gasped for air as his neurons overloaded. He was already coming, his body unable cope with the information his brain was feeding it.

Crowley’s eyes snapped open. He fumbled for the back of Aziraphale's neck and pulled him into a kiss made messy with passion and muscles not quite up and running yet.

“Made the starts fall again,” Crowley mumbled.

They flopped on to their backs, jelly-spined and panting to watch the last of the lights streak across the sky.

Crowley was so much a part of Aziraphale now he wondered if he really could survive Hell Fire. He held his husband’s hand tight and remembered how to breathe.

They held hands as they walked back down the slope to the cottage. Crowley had his coat thrown jauntily over one shoulder and Aziraphale had risked undoing not one, but two of his shirt buttons. His bowtie was tucked away in a pocket.

Everything on the Downs was peaceful and content. Except for the boy sat on his own picnic rug swigging vodka straight from the bottle. There was a box of pills by his knee, but he hadn’t quite reached that level where intoxicated bravery drove despair to breaking point.

Aziraphale recognised the tousled blond hair, pale in the starlight, and the aura of self-loathing that hung around it. They shouldn’t interfere, but Crowley had paused at the edge of the trees. Aziraphale squeezed his hand. His choice was made years ago and he would follow Crowley’s lead.

They ambled down the slope together and sat on the rug, one either side of Sam. He tensed but didn’t say anything. After a moment he offered Crowley the bottle.

Crowley took a swig and passed the bottle to Aziraphale.

They sat like that until the sun rose.


	3. Litha (June)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Conversations are had and an accident happens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The renegade angels story came from one of my favorite series, Rebel Angels series by Gillian Phillip. It has turned up a couple of times in my googling on fairies, but that series of books first introduced it to me and I will shout about them at anyone who will listen.

It wasn’t so far in to the village that Aziraphale couldn’t walk it if he had to. Crowley was tucked away in his forge battering whatever was bothering him into metal and Azirphale had learned from experience that it was best to leave him to it.

The cottage was just on the edge of where fields blended into forest, the drive up to the front door forming a crossroads with the footpath. Aziraphale had never imagined himself to be one to climb over stiles or hop over ditches, but these last few years were proving there was a great deal he hadn’t allowed himself to imagine. Plus, there wasn’t any dirt in the world that would dare to cake his shoes or cling to the hem of his trousers. He ambled in to the village as fresh and put together as when he’d left home.

Home, that was a very pleasant thought.

“Mr Fell!”

Annie hurried out of the bakery holding a pink and white striped box out like an offering.

“I don’t know what you said to those men, but they haven’t come back. Not even another note through the door.” She smiled up at him, flushed and hopeful

“Oh, well.” Aziraphale made himself smile back. “I just appealed to their better natures.”

“Still, thank you.” Annie held out the box. 

Aziraphale hesitated, but the offering was being made with such earnest that he feared Annie would be disproportionately distressed if he demurred.

“Very kind.” Aziraphale took the box.

“Any time. You’re always welcome.” Annie deflated with relief and backed quickly into the bakery.

Odd. Still, strudel was strudel. Aziraphale promptly decided not to think about it until after choir practise. Singing in the Host had been the only times he had every truly felt like he belonged in Heaven. The melody of his siblings surrounding him smoothed out his jagged edges, silenced his uncomfortable thoughts. When he stood among them he was truly part of a bigger plan. Choir practice was not the same. It wasn’t even close really, but feeling his voice mixing with others, even human ones, was starting to heal something Aziraphalle had not realised was broken.

Like Crowley and his forge. It was something they did now. They healed, themselves and each other, and just kept moving forward.

Aziraphale even enjoyed the tea and conversation when the singing had ceased because although he liked to listen to people most of the choir had now learned when not to approach him. They were friendly enough, but not too friendly. Plus he liked the church.

The church felt a little bit like Heaven with its lofty roof and stained glass that glittered when the sun hit it. It was lived in too though. The clutter of a community arranging flowers and posting notices. He could feel God here as they saw Her. Open, welcoming and part of their lives rather than some distant abstraction.

Aziraphale took his tea on a wander to the back of the church to bask in the normality of it all. Right at the back in one of the corners was a mural that had survived the white wash of the Reformation. It showed winged figures with faces contorted in horror falling from Heaven.

Aziraphale went back to it over and over again. He wasn’t sure whether it was the angels who were falling, or those who retained their blazing halos and sanctimonious expressions that bothered him the most, but it did bother him. He sipped his tea and considered.

“You’re settling in very well. I imagine this is quite different from where you were before.”

Maggie Cook, Aziraphale had decided, was part ninja. He tried not to be irritated. He liked Maggie in carefully controlled does, but she’d been quite trying during practise. She bounced about on the balls of her feet flicking her fingers back and forth and calling them all to order. Aziraphale especially.

It was hard, sometimes, keeping an angelic voice within human parameters. Especially when said angel was enjoying himself.

Aziraphale smiled tightly.

“Don’t pull that face on me. I know you like your quiet, and I won’t be long. Indulge an old woman.”

“Hardly old.”

She narrowed her keen eyes at him. “I make sure to enjoy the things I love. I think you do too. I doubt either of us are really the age we look. Oh, now you’re pouting. It was compliment to both of us.”

“Then that’s how I shall take it.” Aziraphale relaxed in to the conversation despite himself. In another plane of existence his wings unruffled.

“Looks like quite the altercation, doesn’t it?” Maggie gestured at the mural with her own tea cup.

“Yes. Quite.”

“Have you heard the story about the renegade angels?” She stepped closer to him, voice lowered in conspiracy.

“I believe I’m about to.”

“An old story we have up here on the chalk. They were the angels that were too bad for Heaven, and too good of Hell.” She was a grandmother who liked to tell stories, the joy whispered from every one of her pores. It was addictive and Aziraphale leaned in, enjoying the performance.

“They fell like shooting stars, burning up the sky and where they hit the sea or the rivers they became the nymphs, and where they hit the clouds they became the sylphs. Those that hit the land became the fairies.”

“Fairies?” Aziraphale laughed. “How quaint.” He’d have to tell Crowley he was a fairy.

“Not at all.” Maggie sniffed. “Trapped between two worlds but not really belonging anywhere. Never able to go home or make a home. I wouldn’t fancy it myself. Born and bred on the chalk, me. I know who I am.”

“That’s a precious thing.” The church was too cold now, it’s corners too dark.

“Yes. But you’re here with us now and we’re honoured to have you. This is for you.” Maggie handed Aziraphale some rolled up music. “I think you’d do well with a solo. You could really let yourself go, not have to worry about everyone else not being able to follow that other worldy voice of yours in to the rafters. Take a look. Tell me what you think.” 

Aziraphale tucked the music under his arm and Maggie went back to the others, leaving him in peace with his demons.

Being in his forge was nothing like forging stars, not that Crowley could remember what forging stars was actually like, of course. All he knew was that the heat and strain on his muscles fed some previously dormant beast inside him. He could get lost in the re-shaping of raw matter, the making something new from something old. This iron was old. Thunderbolt iron humans called it.

He’d taken a wheelbarrow up on the Downs the morning after that night in May and collected the fallen stars. Could have miracled them home, but it felt like something that needed sweat poured into it. So much sweat. Crowley was regretting growing his hair out. Couldn’t even miracle it away with Sam and his friend with the nose ring, Diana, loitering by the door.

They hadn’t come in, they never did unless invited. And they always brought booze with them. An aged whiskey they’d hunted down on line, or local homemade wine.

Still, turned out there was nothing like hitting metal with another bit of metal to work out restlessness. Crowley was nearly calm when he gestured them both inside. The clang of the hammer still rung in his ears and the ache in his arm was starting to turn to a satisfying burn.

“Why a sword?” Sam asked.

“Dunno.” Crowley did know, but that was all he had the breath for at the moment.

Or at least he knew he should know. Somewhere deep inside himself he knew. There’d been just enough thunderbolt iron to mix with terrestrial metals and make a gladius. Yes, he knew who it was for. Although why, or how he was ever going to tell the angel when Aziraphale had already given one sword away, twice, was still a mystery.

Still, had to grind the thing first, file it, polish it, make a pommel and cross guard. No need to worry yet.

Trust did not come naturally to demons and they did not accept happiness well. Crowley was restless, twitchy, and because he didn’t want to worry Aziraphale about it he’d decided to beat his frustration out on metal. And practically adopt Bar Boy and Nose Ring Girl over there as a way to pass the time. They weren’t friends. They were really too young for that even for humans, but they liked to hang out in the forge and ask questions. They liked to make stuff with him. Together they’d used the lost wax method to make statues and twisted thick wires in to torcs. Stayed up all night making a brooch for Diana’s mum.

And they talked to him. Satan, but he’d never been the sort that people confided in before, not about anything beyond _I want_ and _how can I have it._

It was his own fault, Aziraphale said, for creating a place where things were melted down and remade. Crowley didn’t hate it though. The kids knew when to leave, that was the main thing.

Diana especially knew when to make herself scarce. She offered to find the fresh lemonade in the fridge while Crowley and Sam sat on the soft grass outside to cool down in the sun. 

It was an easy silence. Sam looked elfin, wide eyed and pale haired, but he had a weight to him that was calming. His aura was less tangled and toxic than it had been when the year begun. Crowley had been keeping an eye on that.

“How long have you and your husband been together?” Sam’s eyes were closed, head resting back against the forge’s wall.

“Feels like forever.” Crowley had found honesty was always best when served twisted with a smirk.

“Must have been hard when you were younger.”

“It wasn’t encouraged, no.”

“So how did you both, you know? Work it out?” Sam’s words held the weight of something that had been carried for a while.

Crowley wet his lips. Considered. He didn’t want to lie, but he didn’t want to tell the truth either. He could sense the ground beneath the conversation shifting. “We’re still working it out. Being together. We come from very different backgrounds, you could say, but we’ve always been friends. Mostly. That helped.”

“Mostly?” Sam sat up, turned to face him.

Crowley shrugged a shoulder. “Everyone argues, don’t they? Especially when one of them is as stubborn as oxen.”

“But you always made up.”

“I guess.”

“How?” Sam was leaning forward now, arms crossed over his knees. Star-gazers eyes intent.

“Dunno. Time passed, we forgot what we’d fought about, or it didn’t seem important anymore.” Or a thermos of Holy Water exchanged hands and was never mentioned again. This was getting dangerous. “Why are you asking me this, kid?”

Although Crowley suspected he knew. He’d been keeping an eye on the three crew cuts too, especially the one who always hung to the back and never made eye contact. The one who tried to hide from Sam’s gaze whenever there was a confrontation. Sam hadn’t said anything specific about what had caused him to hide up on the Downs in May, but both Crowley and Aziraphale were good at hearing the spaces between words and the ways things could be phrased to hide several meanings all at once.

Sam looked away.

Crowley hissed air out through his teeth. When did he become such a big brother figure? He should hate it, told himself he did. Then said, “It’s hard when someone can’t acknowledge something about themselves. Harder still to be the person who loves them because you get hurt twice. Once on your account, and once on theirs. You can’t force them to change though, that’s the thing. Forcing it will make them dig in their heels harder or run away all the faster.”

And that was truth. Didn’t hurt so much anymore though. Crowley breathed out, and it was easy.

“Especially if they’re stubborn as oxen?” Sam’s lip curled. He plucked distractedly at the grass.

“Especially then. I can’t tell you what to do, but you’ve got to decide. Is this person really the only one for you? The one who is worth getting trampled on for again and again, even if they are the one doing the trampling sometimes. Are you prepared to take only what they are not afraid to give you without resentment or expectation of anything more? Can you love them despite all their bullshit and still be yourself?”

That last was important. Crowley made sure they were the words that stuck in Sam’s head.

“Don’t know,” Sam said.

“Good. I didn’t know for most of the time either, but for me it paid off. He came round, but, yeah. He’s special. Just took him a while to see it.”

Here endeth the lesson. Crowley clenched his jaw shut. That much honesty was exhausting for anyone, let alone a demon.

“You love him very much,” Sam murmured.

“Don’t go spreading it around.”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale’s voice cut through the lazy sunshine, high and urgent.

Crowley clambered up, too fast for a human really, but sod it. Needs must. “Stay here.” He pointed at Sam. “I mean it. Stay.”

Crowley ran.

The girl who visited Crowley’s forge sometimes was in the cottage. Aziraphale was prepared to deal with it via a slightly cutting, “can I help you, my dear?” before encouraging her to leave.

Then she stopped before the door to the bookshop. Her head tilted to one side, inquisitive, as though she could hear the discordant hum of the London traffic. Her lips pursed. She reached out.

Aziraphale moved. His palm slammed against the door, keeping it closed.

Diana took two steps back. Her face white. She looked to the cottage’s still open front door and back at Aziraphale, She stepped back again, her arm hitting the stair bannister.

Too late, Aziraphale realised the distance he’d covered and the speed he’d done it at. It had been shocking when Gabriel did it to him, and he had known what Gabriel was.

Aziraphale panicked. He interfered.

He clicked his fingers and Diana’s eyes went blank.

“Crowley!”

There must have been real terror in his voice because the demon was through the door in a moment. “Angel?”

Aziraphale trembled as Crowley stalked forward, eyes roving over him checking for damage. Satisfied Aziraphale was in one piece, his gaze settled on Diana.

“She nearly found the books,” he explained.

Crowley hissed.

“Well wake her up. She’s had a lovely dream, yada yada…”

“Sorry. I panicked.” He still wasn't sure whether the panic was for the girl, or his books or discovery, but it was still there, white and hot. Aziraphale wiped his hands on his waistcoat. 

“What’s the matter with her?” Sam had come in behind Crowley. He looked at Diana, then the two man shaped creatures in front of him.

“Aw, shit,” said Crowley and snapped his fingers.


	4. Lughnasadh (August)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hand holding and interference. Crowley does not snuggle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another warning for references to suicide and depression, but nothing explicit. 
> 
> Apologies for the delay in the update, and I'm really sorry that this isn't turning out nearly as well as I hoped it would.

Rain had been forecast for the August Bank Holiday Weekend. However, when confronted with a demonic glare the grey clouds scurried on overhead.

“Thank you, dear.” Aziraphale said.

“If we’ve got to go to this thing might as well stay dry,” Crowley conceded.

“And everyone put in so much work.” Aziraphale’s fingers knotted together, un-knotted, drummed on his thighs.

Crowley laid one hand gently over Aziraphale’s. “We won’t stay long.”

“No, best not.”

They were sat on the bench outside the church. On the other side of the graveyard’s wall the primary school band was set up on the village green, happily butchering a pop song. The slightly too aggressive breeze flapped bunting and carried the scent of frying onions towards them.

They nearly hadn’t come, but a heated debate the night before had run in to this morning and reached the conclusion that it would do less harm, generally, if they did show their faces. Withdrawing too quickly from the community would leave gaps in people’s memories that they’d fill with goodness knows what. Give it two months and they’d end up with Maggie Cook on their doorstep with a welcome basket again. She had been a teacher, and therefore had an almost supernatural ability to see anything someone else was trying to hide. Sam and Diana had that particular teenage talent for sniffing out other people’s bullshit, even if they weren’t entirely sure what that bullshit was.

Best to surf in and out, soothe suspicions with a gently psychic nudge and feelings of well-being until the story became all about those two nice middle-aged men who lived at _Apple Seed Cottage_ and were lovely, but private. Don’t trouble them at all.

“Right then.” Aziraphale stood up and adjusted his bowtie. He extended his hand to Crowley.

“Sure, let’s get it done.” He took Aziraphale’s hand and kept hold of it, linking their fingers as they crossed the graveyard to the village green.

They’d timed it just right. The first initial excitement of new arrivals had ebbed, and there was now enough of a turn out that they could slip into the general tide of people milling about. Polite hellos were said. Maggie Cook waved and came over, but she no longer asked Aziraphale if his sore throat was better or when he’d be re-joining the choir. While she shared routine gossip with Aziraphale, Crowley scanned the crowd.

Sam looked steadily back at him over the coconut shy. Crowley waved and smiled through his boiling well of guilt. Sam didn’t smile or wave back. He scowled and turned away. Aziraphale squeezed Crowley’s hand.

“I told you he was a strange one,” Crowley muttered.

“He’s not said anything though, has he, dear?” Aziraphale asked as he steered them deftly away from the Cooks.

“What would he say? _Excuse me, Mr Crowley, but you put my friend and I in a trance and when we woke up we were sat on your sofa with tea and biscuits and everyone was pretending everything was tickety-boo so hard I was too afraid to question it_.”

“There’s no need to be sarcastic,” Aziraphale said primly, but he released Crowley’s hand so he could rub his back. “I know you liked him.”

“Didn’t. Don’t like people. ‘M a demon.”

“Retired demon, darling.”

“I need a drink.”

“Me too.” Aziraphale continued to trace circles at the base of Crowley’s spine. “When we get home though, yes?”

“Yes.” Crowley sighed. Everything was starting to feel oppressive. From the too bright sun to the sticky-sweet scent of candy floss. Demons weren’t supposed to feel guilt, but Sam’s aura was starting to look grubby again.

“Breathe.” Aziraphale slid his arm round Crowley’s back, guiding him to the edge of the stalls with their coloured banners.

“Don’t need to breathe.”

“Humour me.”

Crowley was in Aziraphale’s arms now, head tucked in to the angel’s neck. Safest place in the world, Crowley thought as they swayed to the band. Was that _Moonlight Serenade_? It was probably the best the band had ever played.

“You’re miracling,” Crowley mumbled.

“Just a bit.”

Crowley didn’t want to argue. He spread his palms across the wings of Aziraphale’s shoulder blades and breathed in the scents of tea leaves, book dust and heaven. Small h, no longer corporately aligned with Heaven.

This was ok. They were both still floundering while they figured things out. Holding on to each other as the only stable point in their fluctuating lives just made sense. When Crowley dared to raise his head again people were staring. Aziraphale had tucked them away pretty carefully but there was still a general feeling of dewy eyed awe from whoever passed them by. The sun was brighter and the birds were singing and, “You’re glowing, angel.”

Aziraphale blinked. “Perhaps we should split up. Just for five minutes?”

“Five minutes. Then I’m taking you home and we are doing the thing.”

“Oh, the thing that you don’t do? The thing that is very much not…” Aziraphale smiled. He dropped his voice and whispered, “Snuggling?”

Crowley said a rude word and stalked off.

Aziraphale sort solace in the church. He hummed quietly and tried not to miss the choir, or be upset that Maggie no longer asked after him. He had Crowley. A Crowley who snuggled and laughed more. There wasn’t very much he wouldn’t do to keep that safe.

He'd bask in the quite calm for a while and then he’d show his face back at the fete, find Crowley and they could go home.

He liked having a home.

He liked having a home with Crowley. 

Expensive shoes clicked on the stone floor. “Aziraphale!”

Aziraphale whipped round.

“Don’t look so pleased to see me.” Gabriel grinned. “Surprised you’re still allowed in here. Shoes not smoking at all?”

“Not at all.” Aziraphale had thought there would be more time. That he and Crowley would have more time.

Another flash of power burst behind Aziraphale. Sandalphon. Of course. Aziraphale hated that he was still afraid of them. He should be afraid for Crowley, but there was something about the presence of the two archangels, having their attention on him that made Aziraphale want to shrink. He deliberately took his hands from behind his back and let them hang at his sides. His fingers twitched slightly, but he managed to keep his gaze fixed on Gabriel's right ear. “Can I help you with something?”

“Let’s find out, shall we?” Gabriel’s grin widened.

Sandalphon threw an arm round Aziraphale’s neck.

Crowley stalked through the fete and into the cool darkness beneath a yew tree. He leaned his back against it and wished that he’d never given up smoking. He needed something to do with his hands that was all. He was twitchy, and the day had got darker. That could just be a cloud passing over the sun. Harder to explain away the slight whiff of sulphur.

“Demon Crawly?"

“Crowley.” He tried not to tense. They had sent Eric, which could be both good and bad. Or bad and slightly less bad given that Hell was involved.

“Says Crawly here.” Eric looked up from his clipboard and managed a smile.

“Yeah, well, you shouldn’t believe everything you see written down.” Crowley remembered the demon in front of him wanting to knock Aziraphale about a bit. For a moment his rage was a living thing. He was back in the whiteness of Heaven tied to a chair and wanting to burn every smug bastard one of them to ash. Shit, Aziraphale. Would Hell send someone after him, or would it be worse? Was Heaven involved?

“Love to catch up.” Crowley imagined he had a cigarette stub to throw to the ground as he lifted himself from the tree. “Got to, you know, get a _wiggle on_.”

“Sorry, can't allow that.” Eric hopped in front of him. "See, the Big One’s coming. Hell needs you and your boyfriend out of the way. Where, urm, is your boyfriend?” Eric’s eyes darted about as though Aiziraphale would pop out of nowhere ready to smite.

“You tell me.”

Eric laughed with relief and pulled a bowl of Hell fire from the ether. It burned hot white before dulling to orange. 

"Impressive. What’s your next trick?” Crowley looked over the green, desperate for a hint of blond curls, or a flash of welcoming Grace. Eric wasn’t worth it. Not if Aziraphale needed him.

"Yes, well, nothing personal, you understand?" Eric blew the Hell fire straight in to Crowley's face. 

Crowley’s brain ceased to function. He could see the church through the fete's stalls. The people were still there, but moving slowly. The sound of band and voices were reduced to an angry buzz. Hell fire licked over him, then slowly burned itself out, leaving him smoking and irritable. 

Crowley drew himself up to his full height. He was the Serpent of Eden who had prevented the apocalypse and survived Holy Water. Very slowly, he removed his glasses. “What the fuck?"

Eric stepped back quick. "Just a precaution. Wanted to see how far you'd risen, that was all."

"Risen? I'm still a demon you moron." Crowley beat his palm absently against some remaining flames trying valiantly to flicker up his leg. 

"If you're going to discorporate me at least let me send the clipboard back downstairs." Eric flapped both hands and clipboard as he backed away.

“Discorporation is too good for you. Bugger off now before I...”

"Mr Crowley, are you OK?" 

Crowley didn't think his skin could get any colder. Oh, bless Sam and his good heart and open mind. He stepped out of the sunshine and into Eric's power with the same regard for his own safety that a frog would have crossing a motorway. 

Aziraphale did not have to breathe. It was the shock of being submerged face first in a font of Holy Water that made his lungs think they needed to work. He was panicking. He didn’t need to breathe. He shouldn’t be panicking. He couldn’t stop.

Sandalphon’s grip on him eased and Aziraphale pushed back, gasping.

“Still in one piece.” Sandalphon observed. “Barely singed.”

“Of course I’m not singed.” Aziraphale dragged his hands over his face. He bent down to get back the breath that he was still trying to convince himself he didn’t need. They were mad.

Gabriel crouched down in front of him. “So, immune to Hell Fire and apparently Holy Water can’t make a dent either. What will kill you, hmm?”

Aziraphale managed a glare through his dripping fringe. It was a glare Crowley would have been proud of. Crowley would have said something witty along the lines of: _Wanna try and find out?_ But Aziraphale wasn't in Crowley's body now, and as easy as it had been to face down the legions of Hell as Crowley, it appeared he still didn't have the courage to meet Gabriel’s eye as Aziraphale. What he said was, “I really don’t think that’s...”

Gabriel grabbed his face. “That’s the problem though, isn’t it, sport? You thinking.”

“Gentleman, can I help you?”

Maggie Cook walked down the aisle of the church wearing a smile that could cut glass. Gabriel stood up. “You don’t need to be here right now.”

Maggie’s eyes lost focus. She hesitated, and then took another step towards then. “I disagree. Are you quite alright, Mr Fell?”

“Oh, tickety-boo.” Aziraphale shrugged Sandalphon off him harder than necessary.

“This is none of your business, human,” Gabriel said slightly louder.

This time Maggie barely blinked. “I don’t know what you think you’re trying to do, young man, but this is my church. I help keep it running, and ensure it’s here when the village needs it. So don’t you come in here with your fancy city clothes and tell me what to think, because Mr Fell here is very much my business.”

Gabriel tilted his head at Aziraphale.

“I’m not doing anything," Aziraphale insisted. 

“Do you know what he is?” Gabriel turned back to Maggie, an accusing finger bobbing in Aziraphale’s direction.

“Oh, I know exactly who his is, and we are an inclusive community, I’ll have you know. So you and your friend had better run along before I call the police.”

“As she said,” Aziraphale murmured.

“We aren’t finished,” Gabriel snarled as he and Sandalphon retreated down the aisle.

Maggie watched them go, her eyes steely cold. They warmed instantly when she turned to Aziraphale. “Are you quite alright?” Maggie came forward, but hesitated as she reached out.

“Yes, just old grudges.” Aziraphale paused in butting his bowtie back to rights and looked at Maggie closely. How had she done it? He saw belief in herself, in her community and that she was doing the right thing. Remarkable. She’d called the Archangel Gabriel _young man_ and told him to _run along_. Aziraphale wanted to laugh. He wanted to tell Crowley. Oh, Lord, Crowley.

“Thank you so much,” he said to Maggie, and then scurried out of the church.

“Oh, who’s this?” Eric cocked his head in Sam’s direction. His nostrils flared.

“Nothing to do with you,” Crowley growled.

“Can’t I just have a taste? They don’t let me tempt at all downstairs, and he’s all so _wretched._ Wouldn’t take much. I mean he's having a good day today. But there's also days when he really wants to do it, I can tell. Poor thing.”

Sam’s eyes had taken on the glazed look of someone who currently couldn’t quite process what they are experiencing.

“Stop that,” Crowley said. “Leave him be.”

“No,” murmured Eric. “He’s lonely, confused. Hurt that the one person who seemed to really get what he was going through had been avoiding him. That was you, wasn’t it?”

“For his own good,” Crowley said.

“You’re the best one to judge that, are you?” Eric considered Crowley, his eyes narrowing. “You’ve gone soft.”

"I’m retired." Crowley’s gaze flicked to the church, back to the demon. He wanted to get to Aziraphale. There. A flash of blond out on the green. He seemed to be moving ok. No damage done at first glance.

“Same thing.” Eric shrugged.

“Think I’m soft, do you?” Crowley let his snakiest grin loose as he stepped in close to Eric. Just waste time until Aziraphale arrived. Eric had wanted to hit Aziraphale, but Crowley had put an end to that. He remembered the look he’d given Eric and how that look felt, how it had barely contained his desire to destroy them all. Different muscles now, but he could still do it. He stepped towards Eric, face hardening. “If you are looking for a ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare to demons like you. If you leave now that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you. I will not pursue you. But if you don’t, if you get your talons in to anyone in this village I will look for you, I will find you and I will discorporate you.”

He had a slacked jawed Eric backed up against the trunk of the yew tree as Aziraphale bustled up.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale was wet and anxious but otherwise unharmed. “What in Heaven’s name…?”

Eric squeaked.

“Do I know you?” Aziraphale looked almost affronted.

“No, your grace. Not me.” Eric said and sunk back into the ground, getting stuck awkwardly on a tree root before he successfully vanished.

Crowley barked out a laugh, but there was hardly any humour left in him.

“Are you alright?” Aziraphale grabbed Crowley’s shoulders. “You’re smoking.”

“’Mfine. You’re wet.” Crowley let his awareness uncoil, checking Azriraphale on every plane of existence he could reach. Aziraphale was more than anxious. He was scared and the uncertainty that had been diminishing since they’d swapped bodies was back. Crowley dragged Aziraphale in to a hug, buried his nose in his neck. His angel was here, he was safe. The rest he could use his anger to put right the next time he had an archangel in his sights.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale pushed him away. “I’m fine. Is he?” Aziraphale’s eyes slid towards Sam.

“Shit.”

Sam was all twisted up. His aura cloudy with the oiliness of his own self-loathing. Crowley placed his hands gently on either side of Sam’s face and said his name. “You’ve got a choice, remember?”

Aziraphale’s hands slid round Crowley’s hips, holding him steady against the storm of Sam’s feelings.

“Got a choice to come back, remember? Don’t have to listen to anyone’s bullshit even your own.”

Sam blinked. His eyes refocused as they took in Crowley, and then flicked over his shoulder to Aziraphale. He pulled back, batting Crowley’s hands away.

“Not again,” Sam snapped. “You’ve messed with my brain again? Bloody Hell, what is wrong with the pair of you?”

He took a step back and then turned and walked away, glancing back warily.

Aziraphale slipped his hand in Crowley’s. “Give him some time.”

“You heard what he said.”

That was a problem. Couldn’t leave coherent thoughts running about. Last time he’d let that happen was 1644, and that hadn’t ended well for anyone.

“Yes. Crowley, but need to go home and we need to talk about this.”

“And still do the thing?” Crowley was washed out. Stretched too thin. Caring about people, especially humans, was exhausting.

“God yes. Very much.” Aziraphale squeezed his hand tight.


	5. Mabon (September)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unexpected visitor

Crowley sprawled on the sofa in front of the wood burner. Aziraphale sat cross legged on the floor in front of him, Crowley’s feet in his lap. He was very carefully painting Crowley’s toe nails. The varnish was called _Celestial Blue_. It was cerulean and sparkly. Not Crowley’s aesthetic but he couldn’t care less if it kept Aziraphale’s nervous hands busy and filled his anxious brain with something other than Gabriel.

Crowley wanted to discorporate Gabriel with a pair of tweezers. Slowly. In Hell he’d learned about things you could do with a radish that were, quite frankly, too good for the archangel.

Being righteous on behalf of Aziraphale kept Crowley's mind busy. Aziraphale’s thumb gently pressing in to Crowley’s instep as he worked didn’t hurt either. He slouched further down in the sofa and reached for his wine.

“We agreed to stay alert," Aziraphale murmured. 

“I'm alert. Been alert since August. Can sober up if I need to, can't I?”

Aziraphale tutted. “Not the point, my darling.”

 _Darling_. That never got old. Left little fizzes in Crowley's heart every time. 

Crowley put his glass back down. “We will know when they're coming, angel.”

They had foregone the occult and ethereal booby traps, on the assumption that they could be circumnavigated, in favour of good old fashioned bastardry. There were carefully loosened tiles on the roof over the compost heap, artfully positioned caltrops under all the loft windows, and a number of freshly dug bear pits filled with unpleasant substances at strategically important locations throughout the property. An angel who landed in them would get a nasty smelling shock, as would any demon rising out of the ground beneath them.

Crowley picked up his wine glass again and took a slug despite Aziraphale’s disapproving huff. 

Crowley needed to keep his mouth occupied though. Every minute he wanted to tell Aziraphale about the sword hidden in the thatch above the forge’s door. Every other minute he decided it was best left alone. He couldn’t put that kind of pressure on Aziraphale. Crowley would think of something. Although not if he was completely soused. He put down his glass.

Crowley was twitchy, that was the thing. They hadn’t been in to the village properly for two months. They were hiding, waiting. And the waiting was beginning to wear on every nerve Crowley had left.

“Be still, serpent.” Aziraphale tapped Crowley’s foot. “I’ve smeared it now.” He worked a cotton bud slowly around the edge of Crowley's toenail. 

Crowley leaned forward and peered over Aziraphale’s shoulder. “Don’t panic, ‘snot a first edition you’re binding down there.” Bickering was a pleasant way to pass the time, and Crowley was ready to indulge.

“Hush. I’m going to make a thorough job of you or none at all.” Aziraphale erased the last of the smear.

Crowley scratched Aziraphale’s scalp with his nails. “A thorough job of me?”

There were other things to indulge in too. If he could keep them both out of their own heads long enough.

Aziraphale turned slightly so he could look up at Crowley. “Your nails are still wet. It’ll get all over the carpet.”

Crowley kissed him, deep and slow as the ocean. Azirapahle leaned in to it, his free hand catching at the back of Crowley’s neck.

“And we said we’d stay alert,” Aziraphale whispered against Crowley's mouth. 

Crowley kissed him again.

The bells attached to one of the trip wires jangled. 

Aziraphale's eyes widened. Crowley held on to him tighter. "It's OK," he lied. 

"Yes, of course." Aziraphale stood up, straightened his waist coat. “Stay there your nails are still wet.

“Are you kidding me?”

“Shush.” 

Crowley sunk back in to the cushions while Aziraphale selected a poker from the rack in front of the wood burner. 

There was still time to think of something.

Crowley was OK in a scrap. He could fling a chair in a bar fight and run ok. He prefered the running though. The hiding. Neither of those were an option. As Aziraphale adjusted his stance by the front door, lifted his shoulders, Crowley knew he was the weakest link here. 

Whoever was coming through that door first would get a gut full of iron. They would also be distracted by Crowley on the sofa, and that'd maybe give Aziraphale time to take down the second person through the door too. 

Satan, Crowley loved his bastard angel. Crowley topped up his wine glass. If he could throw it in someone’s face, that’d also slow things down.   
Aziraphale twitched back the curtains on the small window next to the door. “Fuck.” He jerked open the door. Crowley clambered to his feet and followed Aziraphale outside. He remembered he didn’t have shoes on as soon as his left heel hit the gravel path.

“Bless it, bless it.” Crowley bounced on to the lawn.

Four figures ran down the track. The one in front desperate and stumbling. The three in pursuit patient and focused. Aziraphale held open the gate so Sam could blunder through. The three shadows behind resolved themselves in the moonlight. The three bullies had the stink of Hell on them. They stumbled to a halt at the property boundary. Probably Aziraphale's anger making the air pulse, or the horseshoe nailed to the gate that had never bothered Crowley before. 

Sam skidded on the gravel and Crowley sacrificed his feet to grab him before he fell. Blood oozed from Sam's forehead, but it slowed as Crowley held him. Head wounds were never as bad as they looked, were they? 

"Gentleman?" Aziraphale's voice echoed. The silouhette of wings could just be glimpsed against the moon. 

Sam struggled in Crowley's arms. 

"We've got thissss," Crowley hissed. 

"No!" Sam twisted away, staggered back down the path. 

Aziraphale jumped as Sam clutched his arm. "Don't you dare hurt them, Mr Fell."

Crowley swallowed. 

Aziraphale turned his head. In the pause that followed stars could have been born and died. The ghost wings fluttered against the sky and faded in to nothing. 

The tension in the air eased, but when Aziraphale turned back to the bullies they still flinched. He may have lifted his eyebrows in question. One started back. When he turned and ran the others followed. 

"Quite enough excitement for one evening." Aziraphale smiled weakly at Crowley. "Let's get back in the warm." He placed a firm hand on Sam's shoulder. "Shall we?" 

Aziraphale made cocoa. Crowley wanted to hug him, smooth the worry line that was drawing his pale eyebrows together and let him know he was loved, all of him, including the absolutely gut loosening scary bits of him. Sam needed antiseptic cream and reassurance though. The boy’s foot jumped nervously as Crowley pushed back his hair to see the damage.

“Does it need stitches?” Sam's too observant eyes flicked up. 

“Nah,” said Crowley. Hardly interfering at all was it? Head wounds were never as bad as they looked. 

Aziraphale came back in with three cups of cocoa on a tray. In his anxiety he'd piled each one high with whipped cream and marshmallows. Sam took his cup cautiously and it was only another very small miracle that persuaded the sugar mountain not to capsize on to the carpet. Crowley took his cup and looked deep into Aziraphale's worried eyes. He lifted an eyebrow.

Aziraphale managed something close to a smile.

Sam watched them both with wary curiosity. 

“Why did you come here?” Aziraphale asked as he sat down in the armchair, cradling his cup. He looked like a comforting old uncle, but the holy warrior had not quite been put back to bed yet. It waited, tucked away beneath the tartan in case it was still needed.   
Crowley flexed his bare toes in the rug. The varnish was ruined. He wondered if he could miracle it off without Sam noticing. He doubted it. The boy’s eyes were keen. They moved between him and Aziraphale and back again.

“Long way to run,” Crowley mused. 

“Knew they’d be scared of you.” Sam looked at his cocoa. There really was no way of drinking it without getting cream on your nose. 

“We’re not scary." Aziraphale backed this up with a nervous laugh and fussing about for his handkerchief as he did now have whipped cream on his nose. 

Sam looked at him steadily. He put down his cup on the side table. “Try again, Mr. Fell. Neither of you are getting away with that again. I’m depressed not bloody stupid.”

The look Aziraphale turned on Crowley very much said, your turn.

Sam saved Crowley from embarrassing himself with words. “You came to live here and whatever shit was following you has apparently came too. They’ve always bullied me, always, but it’s almost been habit. Like they’re scared of me and just want to keep me in my place. There’s never been hate like there was tonight. And there’s other things too. Those developers are slipping scary notes through the door of the bakery again, and church funding has been cut, and the pair of you are hiding away up here like that’s going to keep us safe. Like we’re all just going to forget you both exist if you think about it hard enough. Well, I can think too, you know? And I think you both need to take some fucking responsibility. You chose us!"

He collapsed back on the sofa hands over his face. "Guess you can curse me, or whatever mind thingy it is you do. Whatever. I'm ready. I just needed to say it and the pair of you needed to hear it."

"You led them all the way up here to make a fucking point?" Crowley snapped. That was mad, and stupid. Couldn't stop himself being impressed too. 

"Crowley! Language! Well, did you?" Aziraphale’s soft accusation far scarier than Crowley's outburst. 

Sam’s gaze dropped and his hands twisted together between his knees. "Yes."

"Well, at least you aren't foolish enough to lie to us as well."

Sam laughed weakly. "Be no point, would there?"

"No." Aziraphale smiled, but there was an edge to it that always made Crowley suspicious. 

"What are the pair of you?" Sam ventured.

Crowley hissed through his teeth. 

Sam turned to face him, teenage insolence bubbling up through his fear. "You can tell me if you're going to make me forget anyway. Diana thinks your fae."

Crowley snorted. "Ridiculous."

"Like out here on the edge of the village, with your forge and your herb garden. Plus she thinks you're fit."

"That is even more ridiculous!" but Crowley knew he was preening by the way Aziraphale smiled over the edge of his mug. 

"Not you." Sam’s lip twisted slyly as his eyes moved to Aziraphale, who spluttered cocoa over his shirt. 

Crowley laughed. Little bastard had done that on purpose. 

Sam grinned too. He risked drinking too, now that the whipped cream had melted enough to collapse." So, not fairies."

"Do you know the story of the renegade angels?" Aziraphale asked. 

"Everyone does. Mrs Cook always tells it at school."

"Well, that's not entirely correct, but it's not so much if a lie to be entirely incorrect either."

Sam frowned. "So you fell from Heaven? That’s what you’re actually saying?" 

Aziraphale glanced at Crowley, face lined in apology. "Some more than others."

"I sauntered vaguely downwards," Crowley clarified. "Aziraphale deliberately jumped while flipping Heaven both fingers." 

"I did no such thing!”

"That's how I'm gonna tell it, angel."

Sam considered this. He sipped his cocoa. “To be fair, that makes as much sense as anything. Will I remember any of this?" 

"Yes," Aziraphale decided. "Because we aren't going to make you forget it. That's how all this works, isn't it? You've come here, uninvited, seeking help, which we gave. There's no cursing, but I think you need to live with the consequences of your actions, don't you?" 

For the first time since the bullies arrived Sam actually looked scared. He’d got an almost truth he wasn’t expecting, and had no bravado left to hide behind. He glanced at Crowley for reassurance, and bless it, but if that didn’t hurt the most about this whole sorry mess. Crowley made himself nod

"Yeah, yeah, I can do that." Sam nodded too.

"The human mind is amazingly adaptable, I've always found." There was kindness in Aziraphale’s voice now. Tinged with pity, but still. He looked weary, resigned. Crowley's heart ached. They'd fought so hard, and it wasn't over yet. Of course their enemies wouldn't come for them at the cottage where they were strongest. They'd draw them out. And they'd need all the help they would get, wouldn't they? Even if that was an eighteen year old boy. 

Satan, but Aziraphale was a bastard. And Crowley was grateful. He'd been itching to send Sam under since the cocoa came out. 

Crowley stood up. "Right then. If there’s no more questions I'll give you a lift home."

There were a lot more questions. As Crowley drove the Bentley down to the village he answered them as best he could.


End file.
